


nothing but a low life (can't stop myself from falling)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: almost like praying [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternative Universe - FBI, Amnesia, Bisexual Male Character, Dark, Hurt Poe Dameron, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Lust Potion/Spell, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: The world splinters between the Before and the After. The Before is just one large blank; he doesn’t remember anything from it.The After, though- all that he remembers is pain.(What happened to Poe in the five years he was gone.)





	1. just a little rush, babe

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Low Life" by X Ambassadors. Chapter titles are from "Sedated" by Hozier.

At first, it doesn't seem real.

\---

Poe wakes up chained to a pipe in a... well, he doesn't know. It's a windowless room, the floor concrete and the walls brick. There is no source of light save the one naked bulb above the stairs that lead up to a shut door.

He's naked, clothes gone and, to his horror, handfasting bracelet gone. The last time that happened, he'd been...Oh, by Thoth. He doesn’t want to think of it.

The last thing he remembers is sitting in bed, reading  _ Fahrenheit 451, _ an old favorite of Finn's.

He's been drugged and kidnapped before- a girl had stalked Finn and ended up kidnapping him.

How different that had been- he'd been held in a loft, handcuffed and scared shitless (the stalker hadn’t been entirely healthy in the mind), but at least he’d been clothed. At least then he'd known exactly who his captor was- the stalker, an associate professor named Denise Hoffman, had alternated between berating him with insults over his imperfection and waxing on about her love for Finn.

Here, and now, there is no captor slinging insults and confessions. There is no insane stalker threatening his life and his husband’s in alternating breaths. There is just a silent, cool room, the only sound that of his own breathing.

He has nothing to do but wait.

\---

A woman enters. She is tall, with long dark hair and silver eyes. As obvious a siren as any he’s met, she moves with a sensual grace that would ensnare any red-blooded adult who looked at her.

Poe, however, only cares about getting out, about Finn and the worry he must be experiencing. He himself is worried about a number of things, not least of which the fact that she’s showing him her face which means that she’s confident she won’t be getting caught.

_ Oh, fuck. _

She makes her way over to him. “You will address me as Mistress from now on,” she says, and his first instinct is recoil, but something in her voice pricks at his thoughts.

Suddenly, he’s not exactly how she did it without Poe noticing, she’s at his side and she’s pressing her lips to his, hard and rough. “You like this,” she says, voice serpentine and silk-smooth.

Her silver eyes flicker as her voice digs into his brain, clawing its way into his thoughts. It's excruciating trying to fight back against the hold her words hold on his mind.

He gasps from effort, and she takes that as a cue to push on. Her allure digs further into his brain, seeking to warp and taint everything it touches.

She climbs his naked body, her eyes dark, blown wide with lust, but nothing can make Poe hard.

He tries to shut down, to imagine Finn's face, but he can't. He can't picture having sex with his husband, can't picture ever doing anything that would violate Finn's boundaries like this.

"Bitch," she snarls, and smacks him across the face. "You will listen to me-"

Something in his body- drugs, he has to suspect- keeps his body sluggish. He can't fight back, can barely even think straight. She pushes, and pushes, and he can’t fight back.

But at least he can't get hard, and that frustrates her. As sure as the situation is, this gives him vicious pleasure. Seems as if years of celibacy  _ did  _ do something beneficial to his sex drive- it nearly destroyed it.

She smiles, and he knows it's cliché but all he can think is that her smirk reminds him of a predator, a shark.

"Don’t worry,” she says, “I'll be right back, pet," and pats him on the head before darting off to some corner of the room behind him.

He doesn't want to imagine what is going to happen to him. The problem is, that is what  _ is _ happening, and because of his extensive experience on the job, his imagination can extend far beyond the normal person's. He has seen some of the most depraved things Normies and Supernaturals are capable of- he has seen true monsters over the course of his cases.

He thinks of Finn, ( _ of Bee _ ), and he braces himself. It shouldn't take more than a few days for the team to find him. He will get through this.

She holds a cup to his mouth, and he can see a blue sludge near the bottom. He recognizes the scent from too many cases.

_ Libidinos _ \- an aphrodisiac potion. Oh HaShem.

He takes a deep breath. What is about to happen will be horrible, will violate him in ways he hasn't been hurt since he was thirteen and the fresh-faced freshman on the football team, but he will survive. He has to.

She shoves it down his throat and it burns going down.

The world blurs.

\---

For the first few months, Poe doesn't give up hope. He is violated over and over, drugged with potion and morphine and forced into having sex with a woman who insists on referring to herself as 'Mistress.' Despite all this, he continues to fight.

_ I love Finn Dameron-Skywalker _ , becomes his mantra, Finn's name a bullet against the feeling of worthlessness, of self-hatred, of fury that courses through him.  _ I love Finn Dameron-Skywalker, my husband, and I will get out of here and back to him. _

_ I  _ will  _ escape. _

He cannot give up. He fights, biting and scratching at her until she knocks him unconscious. He pulls at the chains that hold him in place. 

He can’t give up. He just can’t.


	2. any way to distract and sedate

Poe prays that Finn and the rest of his family continue to make the proper prayers for blessing. He’s going to need all the strength he can get to make it through this.

\---

There are no words to express the state of pain Poe is in other than  _ constant _ . Whether it be burn hexes, rape, or the dreaded whip, Mistress can't stop. She hammers into him in any and all ways she can think of, taking delight in whichever ones elicit the worst screams from him.

Within the first few days (days? He can't be sure) Poe classified her as a sexual sadist. However, such a clinical term (one that he can just barely remember Finn explaining in that soft voice of his) does not do justice to the depths of depravity that Mistress is capable of.

Poe doesn't think that any words could.

\---

He soon discovers that he only gets food when he complies with something she says.

(He quickly gets used to the growling of an empty stomach.)

\---

In the quiet moments, the few Poe has, when he suspects she is off at the store gathering whatever she needs for herself, Poe lets his thoughts wander.

He lets himself dream.

He thinks not about the grand moments, the birthday parties and weddings and births, but of the small things. He remembers the way Finn’s lips quirk up just slightly higher on the right when he smiles, the way Jess constantly taps her yellow-and-pink-painted nails against a desk whenever she’s deep in thought. He remembers the lilt of Finn’s voice as he reads the  _ Chronicles of Narnia  _ aloud, the way Leia always paused slightly before every fourth word she said. He remembers the scent of Obi-Wan’s cologne, the feel of the scales on Rey’s right forearm, the sounds of book pages flipping.

He remembers his family.

He holds onto the small things, everything that makes the people he loves different from his captor.

It’s all he really  _ can  _ do right now.

\---

Poe begins to break.


	3. to feel dizzy, to derail the mind of me

Soon enough, sleeping is the only respite Poe can get from the hell he lives in. He starts to spend as much time as possible- all the time, save when Mistress is in the room or when food is placed at the bottom of the stairs, which he tries to eat slowly as it’s never much- with his eyes closed, trying to reach some imaginary place.

He dreams. At first, there are dreams about the entire team, about his family. He dreams of his nephew, of his sister and mother and holidays, but he mostly dreams of the team. He dreams of old cases and of nights spent as a giant, unconventional family.

_ (He dreams of a little girl, of his daughter, laughing and playing.) _

Soon enough, though, his dreams revolve around solely Finn, and occasionally Jess.

_ (And the little girl, no more than thirteen, who he loves so much.)  _

He regrets not going to Comic-Con with them, the last time they asked. Poe had teased them about the insanity of the event, said that he’d help with Finn’s insane costume but not go with them. In the end, he’d sent them off dressed as the Fourth and Fifth Doctors with a promise not to go too insane.

Despite all the craziness, he thinks he may have had fun. He isn’t the biggest fan of crowds in enclosed spaces- pep rallies were  _ so  _ much fun in high school- but with Finn and Jess, he thinks he might have enjoyed it. He likes Doctor Who- Nine’s his favorite- and wearing a leather jacket wouldn’t have been too much to ask.

He dreams of what could have happened just as much as what actually did.

\---

His greatest moment of horror has nothing to do with pain. It has everything to do with memory, and dreams, and promises broken.

Mistress comes down the stairs, an uncharacteristically sincere grin on her face.

“You're in luck, pet,” she says.

He doesn’t respond. He tries never to.

“Long range memory potion,” she says. “ _ Lethinium  _ base. Takes about a year and a half to rework your brain entirely, but when it's done…” She snaps her fingers. “No more  _ you _ left.”

No, no,  _ fuck  _ no. How could he forget Finn, forget his team, ( _ forget his daughter) _ ?

He tries to scramble away, feet scrabbling against the concrete floor, but she advances, needle in hand. There is no escape, not here, but at least trying to fight gives him some sense of hope.

But then she lunges and the tip of the needle sinks into his skin. His veins light up from the inside. Dynamite explodes in his bloodstream, an implosion only comparable to pixie dust crashing through him.

He collapses, throat on fire, and his vision immediately starts to blacken as his veins begin to corrode from the inside out.

“I told you I'd take care of you, pet,” Mistress’s voice comes, smug, and everything dissolves.

\---

His memory fades.

\---

Who knows how long it has been? There is no way to measure time in a place where sunlight isn't allowed.

It's definitely been more than days, more than weeks, but has it been months? Years?

He doesn’t know who he is anymore. A millennia could have passed and Poe would have no idea, locked up as he is.

\---

(If a tree falls in the forest, does it even make a sound? Will anyone hear if it collapses, alone in the dark?

Will anyone hear if he breaks?)

\---

_ (There is a case a few months after their wedding. The case itself is nothing special- a rape case where the victims are bespelled with a memory charm- but the aftermath is. _

_ Finn and Poe have taken point as they chase down the perpetrator, a witch named Logan Michaelis. They race down the street, guns with magic-cancelling targets fastened to the top in their hands. Behind them by about thirty seconds are Rey and Leia, with Obi-Wan stuck at a different site and Jess back at HQ. _

_ They corner the criminal at the end of an alley. Poe’s barely broken a sweat, heightened demig-d stamina kicking in, while Finn, at a disadvantage physically, starts measuring his breathing as soon as they stop. _

_ “Put your hands in the air, Michaelis,” Poe orders. _

_ The criminal grins as he raises his hands. “I'd look behind you, gentlemen,” he says, voice reedy. _

_ Poe snorts. “Like we'd fall for that trick-" _

_ He's cut off by something slamming into his back, and he goes down hard. There are two gunshots as he falls, but then something sizzles through his body and he blacks out for a few seconds. _

_ When he rises, he doesn't recognize where he is or who's with him. All he knows is the gun in his hand, which though is a bit more high tech than he's used to is still plenty manageable.  _

_ Poe Jacobo Dameron is seventeen years old, and he's just gotten out of the town that never cared about him, that let his coach sexually assault him and never did anything about it. He’s thinking about joining a gang, striking back at a world that never did a damn thing to help him. He is full of anger, his current attitude something along the lines of fuck-the-world.  _

_ He sees a little boy, who can't be more than six years of age, on the pavement next to him. There's a gun by the boy's hand, but he doesn't seem to notice it as he looks absolutely terrified. _

_ Poe takes his gun in both hands and turns, pointing it at the young brunette woman and the vampire who are behind him. He steps in front of the little boy, wanting to protect him. _

_ “Who are you and what do you want?” Poe demands. _

_ The vampire raises her hands in what looks like a gesture of peace. Poe, though, doesn't trust her. He glances behind himself to find the little boy less than a foot away from his back, eyes wide. He’s squinting, almost as he either needs glasses or as if there’s something strange in his eye. _

_ “Poe,” the vampire says, and he glances back, shocked that she knows him. “You just got hit by a de-aging spell. Took about twenty three years off of your life, if I had to hazard a guess.” _

_ The younger brunette, whose skin is a suspicious shade of green along her hands and one side of her neck, nods. “You and Finn were hit by a criminal we were chasing down.” _

_ "Finn?” The question springs from his lips before he has a chance to evaluate. He realizes that the boy behind him must be this Finn, if they keep glancing behind him whenever they say the name. _

_ “Where am I?” The little boy finally pipes up. His voice, terrified though it is, is familiar in a distant, half-remembered sort of way. “This is too humid and hot to be Seattle. Are we in Florida?” _

_ “Alabama, actually,” the blond woman says. _

_ Poe raises an eyebrow. How’d the kid figure that out? Damn, he must be smart.) _

\---

The world splinters between the Before and the After. The Before is just one large blank; he doesn’t remember anything from it.

The After, though- all that he remembers is pain.

\---

_ (A lot of shit goes down before the hex can be reversed, but Poe never lets the adults near Finn. The little kid’s shit-scared of everything that’s happening, and Poe won’t let them terrify a seven-year-old any more than he already is. _

_ They get driven to headquarters, the boy clinging to Poe’s hand the entire time. He constantly spouts random facts, and Poe quickly realizes that this must be a coping mechanism so he doesn’t ask the kid to stop. And besides, he kind of enjoys the facts. They’re a nice distraction from what the adults are trying to tell him- that he’s been deaged, and that he and the kid are actually SCD agents. _

_ "Did you know that the election of 1912 was the greatest third-party showing in American history?” the kid- Finn- asks as they’re ushered into the HQ and onto a sofa in the back. _

_ “Not really,” Poe answers, having already gotten used to what Finn expects in response to his babbling: not a smart response, but rather just an acknowledgement of whatever he’s saying. _

_ “Okay, I’ve got it,” a Latina woman says over the monitors, and Leia breathes a sigh of relief. Poe can’t help but feel the same. _

_ “Poe?” Finn asks, pausing his constant stream of information. _

_ “Yeah, kid?” _

_ “Are they gonna fix us?” _

_ Poe nods. “I think they just figured it out.” _

_ Leia heads over, a man in a police uniform standing next to her. Poe does his best not to flinch when the police officer gets close. “Boys, this is Officer Brook,” Leia says to them. “He’s a witch, and he can cast the spell that will reverse the hex on you. You’ll have to stay still during the process, though. Do you guys understand?” _

_ Finn bobs his head quickly in a nod, and Poe follows, albeit a bit reluctantly. _

_ "Alright, then,” Leia says. “Officer Brook, I’ll let you take over.” _

_ The officer steps forward, raises his wand, and begins to chant a spell. Poe’s eyes begin to fall shut, lulled by the sound of the officer’s voice, and then- _

 

_ Poe blinks open his eyes to find Finn sitting next to him, knees pulled to his chest and gaze trained on Poe's body. _

_ “That,” Finn says as soon as he notices that Poe's awake, “Was terrifying.” _

_ “You're telling me,” Poe agrees, levering himself up into a sitting position. “Seventeen wasn't a good age for me. It was right after Coach Lawrence left my school and I hooked up with some of the smokers. It was fucking weird, and not in a good way, to go back.” _

_ “My dad left at age seven, as you know,” Finn says. “Left Mom and I in a house where her brain continued to break, until I was able to sign her into a mental hospital at age eighteen. We survived on her disability and then, when I went to college at thirteen, I had a full ride and the neighbors took care of her.” _

_ Poe takes Finn’s hand in his and squeezes it reassuringly. Finn gives him a pained smile. _

_ “Let’s never go through anything like that, okay?” Finn asks. _

_ “Sounds good to me,” Poe agrees.) _

\---

He forgets, and he forgets, and he-

\---

_ Finn Dameron-Skywalker _ , the man thinks, and the name gives him a comforting feeling deep in his stomach. The man can't remember who this 'Finn' is, or why the name makes him feel better, but it does and that's all that matters.

_ (There's also a walker involved, somehow. He doesn't know what it means, or what it is, but he knows it's important.) _


	4. adding shadows to the walls of the cave

She comes down the stairs again, and all he can see is her face, dark as the night sky, framed by hair darker than his skin. She reminds him of something- some _one_ \- that he thinks he might have loved. The only thing that is off putting is the silver sheen around her pupils. For some reason, it makes him think of what _isn't_ there more than what is: a pair of dark eyes, framed by glasses.

 _(Siren_ , his brain quantifies. _Mistress is a siren. (Not like him.)_

A moment later: _What's a siren?(And who is_ he _?))_

 

This time he takes everything that she does to him. He has no reason to fight- he can't remember why he was ever fighting.

She smiles at him and he finds paradise in the agony of a dark basement.

 

 _Finn Dameron-Skywalker_ , he thinks, and for a moment he pauses in ministering to her.

 _Do I know him?_ He wonders, and for a moment something picks at his memories.

(A man, wearing glasses. A smile. A gun, hooked to a belt. A patch-elbowed blazer.)

( _A little girl, purple eyes bright. Swinging braids. A book of stars.)_

He goes back to servicing Mistress. _No,_ he thinks, _I don't. I'd remember if I did._

\---

The only light he ever sees is from the single bulb that hangs from the ceiling, and only then when Mistress descends. He thinks that there might have been some other source of light somewhere, but he can’t be sure. It doesn’t make much sense, does it, the idea of there being light anywhere but when Mistress comes?

He prefers when the light is off. There isn’t pain when the light is off. When the light is off, he is safe. He is almost comfortable. The darkness is welcomed here, in a place where light means agony.

He thinks that if he ever saw another source of light, it would blind him.


	5. our teeth and lungs are lined with the scum of it

Mistress smiles. "You'll be a good boy, won't you?"

The man nods, numb.

There is nothing but here, in this basement.

\---

He feeds her appetite, and she grows more and more insatiable. More pain, more pleasure. Aches grow to active pains, soreness to burns.

He rarely thinks about anything else but this.

(Bright blue eyes, glasses glinting in the light of the single ceiling light. Fingers, ghosting across his cheek.

_ I love you, pretty boy. _ ) 

\---

It's been years, eons, infinities since he was locked in here, since dreams turned to escape turned to numbness. He has no way to keep track, to know anything other than what Mistress lets him know.

(There is nothing that Mistress lets him know.)

\---

She comes down the stairs one day. His stomach rumbles slightly at the sight of her, no matter how much he’s tried to get it to stop doing that. He’s always hungry, the pit in his stomach never filled. There’s no point in his body reminding him of that.

She perches on the bottom step, lipstick-painted lips pursed. “Can I trust you, pet?” she asks.

The man has no idea what she means. The question doesn’t even make any sense- does he trust her? He didn’t even know that there was an option.

“Yes, mistress.”

Her mouth curves upward, the dark red of her lips becoming a frightening slash across her face. “You get to go upstairs now.”

“Upstairs?” he whispers. He thinks he remembers the idea, but it’s a strange one. Going out of the basement? Why would he ever do that? (How would he ever do that?)

She nods. “I have different jobs I need you to do, pet.”

“Yes, mistress.”

\---

He is no longer in the basement, and the light is strange. He thinks it is natural, and he hasn't felt natural light in...years? Ages? A lifetime? What is natural light, truly?

(He remembers such a concept, but he's not entirely sure what it is.)

\---

She burns his hand the first and only time he tries to touch the handle to the basement door. She presses a lit cigarette into the skin of his hands.

“This is for your own good,” She says, smiling at him as a scream wedges itself past his gritted teeth.

\---

Every single memory is one of agony.


	6. slaves to any semblance of touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter is so short, I'm uploading two at once!

The man alternates between remembered identities. On good days, when he is being treated for his wounds, he is just Mistress' man, her pet. He sleeps on her floor, servicing her at night.

(On these days, the feeling is less. The past is less.

The hurt is less.)

On bad days, on anger days, he is _Poe_ , with _something_ sizzling in his veins, the wisp of a voice, a face, burning through his memory. He remembers the name Finn, ( _the face of a young girl),_ and something pulls. His fists clench, fingers bending into long forgotten shapes.

(When she doesn't notice such a thing, he fades back to _man_.

When she does, she whips him, and he stays Poe.)

(He can't decide which he prefers.)

\---

Sometimes the man looks at his skin, burned much darker than it once was, a dark, burnished brown. He thinks of how Mistress is harsh, and how the days are long, and about how he works Mistress' crops without any reward besides the paltry food he gets at night.

A word floats up through the dark abyss that is his mind: _slave_.

  



	7. our veins are busy but my heart's in atrophy

The man has no idea how long he has been living in Mistress' world. He doesn't remember a time before this ongoing cycle of sex and toil, of nights on Mistress' floor and days slaving away in the fields.

He no longer dreams of anyone in the past. His dreams turn instead to Mistress, in her kinder moments, when she doesn't make him have sex with her during the night or occasionally allows him a shirt during the day, to keep the sun off his back.

Even Finn Dameron-Skywalker's name is becoming a distant memory. 

\---

The "Poe" days are becoming less and less as Mistress spends more time in the basement, where the man has never gone since he left. Whatever happens in the basement, it keeps Mistress calmer and less likely to lash out.

Whenever she disappears down the stairs, the man breathes a sigh of relief.

\---

An old, old fantasy breaks the surface one day as he's working in the fields. A man with darj skin, glasses, and dark hair smiles at Poe.

_ (There is a girl by his side, a young, olived-skinned girl with hair in braids and an oversized orange leather jacket on. Her smile is incandescent and her purple eyes shimmer. _

_ “Pa,” she says.) _

He shoves it aside. There is nothing but here and now, naught but the work-


	8. free and young and we can feel none of it

Poe doesn't know what he's done this time, but Mistress is whipping him for the first time in ages and he's being reminded of every horrible thing she used to do, back in the basement.

\---

Mistress is gone, and for the first time since, well, he can remember, she hasn't locked him up. Maybe she trusts him. Maybe she thinks he trusts her.

He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t think he could care. Pain is lancing up his back. He can barely think properly. There is a split decision to be made.

(If this had been a “man” day, perhaps this wouldn't have made a difference. He probably would have sat, obedient, waiting for her to return. 

But now, he is  _ Poe _ , with bloody stripes down his back, and he can't stand this any longer.)

He stands up- such a strange act inside the house, as normally the only place he can stretch to full height is when he's working- puts on a shirt (ignoring the pain it causes his back), and heads for the front door. 

A front door- what a strange concept. He’s passed through the back door all number of times, delivering food and soil and crops and tools and any other supplies Mistress needs, but a front door? He does not know the last time he passed through one.

_ Poe _ , he thinks,  _ Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker. I can do this. _

He steps out onto the front porch., expecting the world to explode, or at least for something horrible to happen.

Nothing does.

He is outside, and the world is still standing.  _ He  _ is still standing.

He takes a deep breath. He can do this. He then heads out down the road, in nothing but his shirt and pants. He takes nothing- he needs nothing from that house.

\---

He finds what he thinks is a restaurant. He vaguely, distantly, pulls a memory of warmth and happiness at the name of the restaurant.  _ Botticelli’s _ \- he remembers something there, something from a time before Mistress.

(A time before Mistress- until this moment, he hadn't realized that such a thing existed.)

He walks in, gait uncertain, to find what his brain classifies as a mid range chain restaurant ( _ Friday's, Bob Evans, Friendly's _ \- his brain provides other examples of said category). There's a few TV's playing up above the bar, and as he stands with the families he hears, faintly, the words  _ Supernatural Crimes Division _ .

Something shifts in his brain.  _ Dr. Finn Skywalker. Finn Dameron-Skywalker. SCD. The Agency. _

A number rattles across the bottom of the screen, accompanied by the face of a beautiful (No, not beautiful, no one is beautiful except for Mistress and the name  _ Finn Dameron-Skywalker _ ) black woman. He knows that this number will take him to Finn Dameron-Skywalker. This number will take him to safety.

"Can I borrow your phone?" He asks the hostess. "I'm lost and I need to call someone."

She raises her eyebrow- probably at his appearance, which is dirty and stained- but nods. "Just one moment, sir."

A few moments later, he punches the number into a phone that looks like it belongs in the future.

It rings, and rings, and-

Someone on the other end picks up the phone.

"Hello," he says, "I'd like to speak to Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker."

"Dr. Finn Skywalker?"

Sudden doubt enters Poe's mind. His memories are fluid, and everything seems to be up to interpretation. Making choices is not something his brain is used to. “I think so.” An image pops into his brain, a feeling of cold metal against his hand. He looks down, expecting to find a bracelet on his hand. “Tell him about a Möbius strip.”

“A what?” the woman asks.

“A Möbius strip,” he repeats, voice shaking.

"May I have your name?"

For a moment, identities war. The man or Poe? Slave or human? 

He takes a breath. He’s not with Mistress anymore. "Poe."

"Any last name?"

He swallows. "I'm not sure. Just...I need to talk to Finn Dameron-Skywalker. Please, ma'am.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, and steps away from the phone. He hears murmurs and talking sounds on the other side of the phone as he waits anxiously, his heart feeling like it will burst against the inside of his chest.

Then someone takes the phone.

"Hello?" A soft, familiar voice whispers.

Poe swallows. "Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker?" He asks, unsure.

There's a gasp on the other end. "Poe?"

Poe can never be quite sure of who he is, but if Finn Dameron-Skywalker wants him to be  _ Poe _ then that’s who he’ll be. "Yes?" Poe answers, voice betraying his uncertainty.

"I'm sorry," Poe says, "if I'm interrupting or something, 'specially since I don't know who you are, but all I know is that I need your help. I just left Mistress and I don't know when she'll get back. Please, sir, you've got to help."

"Okay," Dr. Dameron-Skywalker says, and there's a shuffling sound on the other side of the phone. "Can you tell me where you are?"

"I'm at a restaurant," Poe says, and he has to step away for a precious moment to ask the waitress for the exact address. "Botticelli's on Farber Street, the waitress says."

Dr. Dameron-Skywalker asks: "And how did you get there?”

"I walked down from the farm."

"The farm?"

"Mistress' farm."

"Mistress?" Dr. Dameron-Skywalker's tone is neutral, calm, hard to read, but Poe holds onto it for all he has. "Who is this Mistress?"

"Mistress is..." The words stumble out of Poe's mouth. He doesn’t know how to describe Mistress. Pain or pleasure? Cigarette burns and slaving away in the fields, but a home and a bed. He can’t be sure of the correct answer. "She is..."

"Okay. Poe, it's okay. You can tell me about mistress later." Poe sighs in relief. He does not want to speak of Mistress, does not want to tell Finn what has been done to him. His mind does not fully recognize what is happening- who Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker is, where Poe is,  _ who  _ Poe is, without Mistress- but he doesn't think what's happened to him is a decent topic of conversation. "I'm going to call a teammate of mine- a friend- to come pick you up. Sound good?"

"Yes, sir,” Poe says immediately, a bit puzzled by someone asking him for his opinion on something but understanding that this is what Finn Dameron-Skywalker wants.

“Goodbye,” Dr. Dameron-Skywalker says. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Poe swallows and repeats automatically: “Yes, sir.”

“Poe,” Finn Dameron-Skywalker says quietly, “You don’t need to call me sir.”

“Yes, s…” He bites his bottom lip to keep from finishing. He doesn’t want to say anything that could offend Dr. Finn Dameron-Skywalker. “Okay.”

“Good. Um, goodbye?”

“Goodbye.”

And then Poe presses the  _ end call  _ button.

 

"Are you okay, sir?” the hostess asks as he hands her back her phone.

Poe remembers that if he turns his lips up, pull the muscles in a different way than he ever remembers doing, it will communicate happiness. So he does.

“Yeah,” he says, “I'm alive.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Hope y'all liked it and that it was a wild ride!

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's finally the sequel! Hope y'all like it. This series will be four parts, and I hope y'all like them all.


End file.
